


A Rose is a Rose

by rezi



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon-Compliant, Character Study, F/F, Gen, Identity, Ultimate Selves, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-24 01:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13202538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rezi/pseuds/rezi
Summary: Snapshots of Rose Lalonde, from different times, places and timelines.All of them are different, but all of them are Rose.





	A Rose is a Rose

**Author's Note:**

> It's been three years and a day since [the last Homestuck fic I posted.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13202538) But I'm back, and I'm gayer than ever.
> 
> (addendum: dear fuck this is the fourth time I've had to rewrite these notes. posting from AO3 drafts is a goddamn mess)

You are thirteen years old, and the world is ending.

The torrential rain of a few hours ago has turned to a rain of meteors. And yet, against all common sense, here you are outside in the middle of it all.

The severed hand of a shitty wizard statue arcs magnificently through the air, and because fate enjoys nothing more than fucking with people, it knocks your cruxite bottle right off its podium. The bottle's embarking on its own arc now, and if you don't make a move soon, it'll plummet right into the waterfall.

You know you'll have to smash it to embark on your own journey. What else are empty bottles for? Yet there's a dozen feet of empty air between you and your _bon voyage._ If you're going to get it, you're going to have to jump.

You wish yourself luck. Here you go.

* * *

You're thirteen, and it's coming to light that you may never reach fourteen. 

In all honesty, you're hoping you don't. Ceasing to exist sounds like a preferable alternative to indefinite life in a game you've lost. You won't even have a Strider to snark at, and what's a world without Strider snark?

He's made his decision. He's going back. You've wished him luck. That's all you can do for him now.

He told you to sleep. Apparently, that's the only way you have a chance of merging back into the real timeline. The one that matters, with the potential to go anywhere, unlike the months you've spent in this dead end.

So you'll sleep. A little less of a decisive action than you'd like... but you'll take it.

You drink from a bottle of your mom's wine. You know from experience that it helps.

* * *

You've reached an age that one must never ask a lady about, and the world is a fucking parody beyond belief. When reality insists on being this way, the total loss of sanity is the only rational response.

A shame that you always were such an irrational little girl.

You wonder which is greater: the word count of your singularity-dense books, or the number of mouthfuls of wine (and stronger) you've gulped down to cope with all this? You knock back another while contemplating: it may well be a close call.

You've made your way through four glasses in the last hour, and it seems to have had next to no effect. Damn tolerance. Can't you at least be a _little_ tipsy for what's about to come?

Dave's sent you a message, uncharacteristically blunt:

shes coming

You smash the empty bottle for good luck. It's just a symbolic gesture, of course, but those hold more power than you'd think.

* * *

You're sixteen today. The fact that you're also hungover makes it difficult to muster up any form of jubilation. Happy fucking birthday. 

The knocking on your door can fuck off. You can tell from the gentleness of it that it's not Karkat. It's not Dave either, Dave being the type to take Poe's "rapping at my chamber door" literally. No, it's soft, polite, but insistent, and there's no one else on this meteor that could be.

(Except the Mayor, you briefly consider. Doubtful, though. The Mayor is an exceptionally busy gentleman; meetings with him are by appointment only.)

You can't face her in this state. You love her, you really fucking love her, but you're a dishevelled mess, your hair in your eyes, your god robe all askew. And gentle as they are, each of those knocks on the door feels like a thump to the head.

"Rose?"

Of course it's Kanaya. Who else would it be. It becomes even more pertinent that _you are in no state to do anything, least of all see your girlfriend_ , and you find your eyes drawn to a bottle beside your bed...

It might make this encounter easier to deal with. At the very least, it'll make you care about your dire state of being a little less.

Drink. Kanaya. In that order.

* * *

You're sixteen today. More noticeable at the present moment, though, is the fact that you're being yelled at by a decidedly pissed-off troll.

You'll be lucky if you get through this encounter without even more of a thumping headache than you already have. Unfortunately, as she constantly wastes no time in asserting, Vriska has _all the luck._

"What's this????????" she yells. Even out loud, you can count all eight of the question marks. Each one is a separate accusation.

"An empty bottle. Which I emptied myself, last night, by way of consumption. I realise that this action runs counter to the Book of Vriska, chapter 8, verse 8, and for contravening this sacred law I am being administered the punishment of a scolding from Vriska. A punishment that falls under the umbrella of corporal punishment, considering the extreme amount of pain it is causing in conjunction with the hangover I am presently nursing."

"That's fucking right!" She smashes the bottle, with no concern for where the shards of glass fly. Fortunately, none of them hit you; unfortunately, none hit her. "You used to get shit done, Rose! What the hell happened to being the Seer of Light? "

"At the moment, I'm seeing stars," you mutter, trying to blink the stars away. "It's an important task, believe me."

She groans in disgust, and forcefully pulls you from your bed. "Kanaya wants to see you. Something about your 'birth day'."

Ugh. This is the worst possible state for Kanaya to see you in. No point arguing, though...

* * *

You're sixteen years old, and you're watching your girlfriend die. She fades into the light, the shape of her becoming nothing. You're surrounded by horror, you're frozen for a moment, you're overcome by tears -- and then you see the person who fucking did this, and **you will not let her live.**

* * *

You're nineteen years old, and you and your wife are tending to the newest batch of grubs.

It's April the 13th. John's birthday, of course, but they've come to call it "Creators' Day", commemmorating when all of you joined them after thousands of years. It's never stopped feeling strange to be commemmorated, to have your existence celebrated as a cross-kingdom festival. But that's the way it's been, all three years you've been here. And you won't deny... it's fun.

They say it's a lucky day, too. The day they were blessed by their gods dropping out of the sky. Today, it's lucky for you... and lucky for all the trolls that have just seen the light of day. A healthy brood, and not by any means a small one. Another success. Kanaya stresses every time, but the result is always good.

You wrap an arm around her waist. Together, you fondly regard your creations.

* * *

You don't think age really applies to you, and does it even matter? You're a half-kitty half-Rose mystical guide squared, and you are surrounded by attractive friends. Isn't life wonderful?

You're fully aware of what all the Roses that have been Rose are like, and you know they would _all_ overthink things like that. Shame you're the only one of those who reached their full feline potential! Instead of dressing everything up in flowery purple prose bullshit, you get right to the point. It's so much easier.

Yes, it's abundantly clear that you above all others are the Ultimate Rose.

Alright, alright, not quite. No, _they're_ all the Ultimate Rose. All of them, all together. So many of those Roses spent so much time wrapped up in their timelines, focused on specific outcomes, that they never saw them all together. You see, each different strand's wrapped round and round in a big ball of Rosey yarn. And while each Rose sees their bit, you're the only Rose who can see it all, who can chase it around and pounce on it as only a kittycat can. And you pounce with reckless abandon.

As magnificently distracting as your metaphors may be though, you unbelievably have something better to do than daydream about timeline yarn. You've got another sprite to prototype, this time with a certain kittytroll, and then you have a very important date to go on. A first date! The first of many successful dates which, of course, will end in marriage. You know it, you just do.

You've got a wife-to-be to woo. Toodle-oo!

**Author's Note:**

> (This was meant to have been posted on the third anniversary of me having posted my last fic... which was yesterday. I went and misremembered the date. Oh well. Grand Fandom Re-Entrance™ only moderately tarnished, and it won't stop me from being just as much of a Homestuck fan as I always was.)
> 
> One of the aims of this fic is to talk about one of my most strongly-held beliefs about the weird old mess that is Homestuck: that the concept of the Ultimate Self is the culmination of every version of someone, every person they ever had the potential to be. It _all_ matters to the whole, whether doomed, scratched, or retconned.
> 
> It's also an excuse to ramble about Rose Lalonde, because I fucking love Rose Lalonde. Always have, and likely always will.


End file.
